Where the Trail Leads Us
by NefariaBlack
Summary: "On May 2nd, 1998 Harry Potter died. Harry failed; Harry died, and the world stopped moving. It stayed still for both very long and no moment at all. Then, it went back." In a world where the Boy-who-Lived does no more, Hermione is forced to find a new path to her life. Warnings: major character death, slightly suicidal thoughts. Time-turner!AU Work in Progress, rating will go up


_Author's Notes: I've been kicking the idea for this fic around since December and the bunch of Advent Calendar Prompts that I never actually wrote for. Then this month the stars aligned and just the right bunch of prompts came to light on the forum and voilá I finally put it down into words. Also, the quote at the beginning is a forgotten prompt from 2018's Yearly Challenge and it was a large part of getting my plot bunnies started, so there you have, a pretty little quote in italic at the start._

_The prompts responsible for this madness can be found at the bottom. Because I plan on expanding this fic and the full set of prompts would spoil things, not all the prompts are listed yet, and some are still unfulfilled. This won't be a multi-chapter, rather a long one shot. I'll get it finished and uploaded as soon as I get the all clear from the people scoring this assignment ;)_

_This one will be a bit on the long side (at least for me) but I do hope not to put you to sleep by the end of it and to have made it worthy of a couple of reviews ;)_

_Warnings (for now): major character death, slightly suicidal thoughts_

* * *

**Where the Trail Leads Us**

_"Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real." Cormac McCarthy_

On May 2nd, 1998 Harry Potter died.

Harry failed; Harry died, and the world stopped moving. It stayed still for both very long and no moment at all. Then, it went back.

Back to the raucous of the battle, now without quarrel, fought to the very last of consequences, to the very last of them. Then, the world went further back.

Back to the chaos of the hunt, to the uncertainty of who's on whose side. Then, Hermione found herself running through the Forest of Dean, Neville on her heels, the Sword of Gryffindor in his hand, its blade clean, never driven through the last horcrux. Seamus ran alongside them, shooting hexes over his shoulder and cursing profusely through his accent.

Lavender was dead. Dean was dead. McGonagall had been captured and would soon be dead as well, none of them doubted it. Molly was dead, and so was Fred, but Ginny was not. So Hermione kept running, a hand tightly clasped over Ron's arm, keeping him running, pulling him along, while Ginny held his other hand, running through her tears, seething, promising Ron that they would avenge their mother, and their brother, and all the others.

They were kept on the run for days that turned into weeks and then into a month and two and then further, until time made no sense at all. They could see the sun up above and still doubt it was day. Their wands showed them North and they doubted even that, fearful of the darker, more powerful, creatures that now ruled Britain and distorted their reality. They no longer slept. They barely ate. They ran, and fought, and tried to set up camp only to be discovered halfway through their attempted rest and made to run once more.

Eventually, the world ceased making sense altogether. They were completely cut off from it. It was just the five of them against it all, no way of knowing if anyone else had made it out of Hogwarts, if there was anything akin to a resistance movement they could join. Their world had shattered beyond anything they could possibly recognize. Living felt like being underwater, where sound was slow and dull, and their movements hindered by a weight that they could not see.

Harry had died, and their hope soon followed. They had ran from the battle with plans to go underground and fight back, but any of them would willingly give up now, just so that they could stop, just so that they could close their eyes and dream of better times, of brighter futures.

Neville no longer carried the sword, which now lay forgotten in some place they had tried to stop for a little rest. What Neville did carry was the immense weight of his grandmother's fate, of his parents' fate, that surely had been grim.

Seamus and Ron had turned into nearly feral things in their grief. They lashed out at everyone with words and angry stares, too tired to even think of using their magic. Ron had said horrible things to Ginny, but dutifully punched Seamus lip and eyebrow black and blue when he dared turn on his sister.

Ginny was a fireball of anger, but she had given herself a purpose. She wanted revenge. Bloody, gory, deathly revenge. Hermione often remembered the twins telling her of how they had started a pool about Ginny being sorted into Slytherin, but she had never seen it quite as clearly as she did those days. Those dull, all-the-same days in which the feisty redhead seemed to be the only one pushing them forward, urging them along in their desperate fight for life.

The weather became chillier, the ground muddier, and they figured summer must have ended. They were kept awake at night by the unforgiving bite of the wind in their bones, even when they were conceded the grace of a night without combat. But the days still had some warmth under the sun, and sometimes, very few times, they dared stop in a clearing, pull blankets out from Hermione's trusted beaded handbag, and rest. Three slept while two kept watch, but all held their wands tight in their hands. The hunt would slow down sometimes, almost as if daring them to let their guard down, not that they ever did. Harry was dead, their cause was moribund, and Merlin knew that they wanted to stop, but how could they? How could they stop fighting, how could they do nothing?

Hermione let Ginny push them onwards while she picked her brain for a plan. She needed to fix this, she had to. They couldn't possibly survive much longer, not like this. They no longer had the tent, or the Cloak, or the Sword, or the Order. It was just the five of them, starved, bruised and battered, well past exhaustion but somehow still moving, following the trails left by the creatures that inhabited the forest, keeping close to each other, constantly looking over their shoulders.

Until the day the world stopped a second time.

oOo

They had been gifted with three days of relative peace. The ground was much harder under their feet now, and ice formed during the night, though snow hadn't fallen yet. Hermione was sitting by the meagre fire, trying to keep her hands warm, when Neville approached her. The lanky boy sat down by her side, holding his hands close to the fire, eyes lost in the dance of the flames.

Hermione took a moment to observe their sleeves, side by side against the fire. How the colours had gone muddy and the seams were now frayed. Their scarves, once proudly gold and red, had suffered as well, and were now dull long things that gave their necks a figment of the warmth they needed. Time was unforgiving. Their bodies had changed too, diminished to a coat of skin over protruding bones and the small portion of muscle that hadn't consumed itself yet.

"Where did the time go? It must be nearly winter," Neville's voice created tiny clouds in the air, "and we are nowhere near to having a safe haven, Hermione."

"I know, Neville, I am well aware" she tried, she truly did, but she could not keep the sharp edge from her voice, "I realize we need shelter if we are to even stand a chance of living through winter, I just didn't notice time going by." She was so tired. Ginny kept them going with her unwavering will, but it was to her they all looked for solutions, and it was so very tiring, and all she wanted to do was stop and let the cold lull her to sleep and make her numb to this world, because Harry was dead, and so were so many people she cared about, and she would never see her parents again.

But there were more pressing matters now, as the fact that they needed shelter but couldn't simply use their magic to summon it. She hadn't quite figured it out yet, but there was something about them using magic that brought their hunters closer. It was like their magic was being traced, as if it could leave tiny footprints in the trails for the Death Eaters and the snatchers to follow. They had taken to doing things as manually as they possibly could, which only darkened their mood further. Every tiny injury became a slight of the world against them, as did all the times that they couldn't get a fire started, or a fish to bite the damned bait, or a squirrel to be trapped. There was no privacy, no moment to be alone, no chance to cool off before facing the others, and their tempers ran amok more often every day.

"Maybe we should try to leave the forest, Hermione, like we did that time…"

"That time we nearly got caught, Ginny was injured and Seamus earned himself that scar? We can't leave the forest, Neville. They now we're here."

"We can't stay either! We are cornered here, and there's no way we'll live much longer if we stay. We have to Apparate somewhere else!" Neville's tone had a bite equal to hers, and something shifted inside Hermione at the sound of it.

"What do you want me to do? All you do is ask questions and wait for my solutions, and I can't sort this out! I can't bring Harry back, I can't take us back to Hogwarts and change everything-"

"Get away from her!" Ron yelled from the edge of the clearing, while he moved to stand between her and Neville, wand at the ready.

"Ron, it's fine, just leave us be. We'll talk things through," she was only trying to calm down everyone, but she had clearly said the wrong thing. The look that Ron shot her was filled with scorn, with jealousy, and Hermione hated him for it in that split second.

"Have you all gone insane?" Ginny was walking towards them now, fury made flesh, a resolve in her eyes that never seemed to waver. "Do you have any idea of just how fucking loud you're all being? Seamus and I heard you all the way from the trees, which means _someone_ forgot to put the shields up-"

Hermione cut her off at that, unforgiving and past caring about it.

"Putting shields up means using magic, and magic seems to lure Death Eaters, which is why _I_ haven't put any shields up for the past few days. And guess what? We haven't been bothered so far."

Seamus opened his mouth, probably to remind them to argue quietly, but was left speechless by Ginny's answer.

"So is that our solution now? Is that what the brightest witch has to offer? We just live as Muggles in the wilderness and all will be fine! Who cares that a tyrant now rules Britain and that half the wizarding families have been wiped off the face of the earth? You certainly don't! I've been telling you all to fight back instead of running-"

Ginny went quiet suddenly, her rage trapped in her throat. Hermione had every intention of carrying one, but Ginny held her hand up, then a single finger, while her other hand grabbed for her wand.

"What is it?"

"Shut up, Seamus, they're here. They've heard us."

A twig cracked to their right, but all they saw when they looked was a flash of green light careening towards them.

"DUCK!" Neville screamed. There was no point in being quiet anymore, not when three silver masks over jet-black robes emerged from the trees.

The world was alight then, the clearing shining in dozens of colours as they exchanged hexes and curses with the anonymous figures, finding new strength in the thrill of the battle, their minds sharp once more, even if only for a moment. They were careless, completely reckless as they flung vicious curses at the Death Eaters, their tempers eager for a way out that did not mean turning on each other. Too tired to care about the consequences, they took all their anger, all their frustration, all their grief, and threw it at their opponents. Magic and wrath flowing through them, pumped by their hearts; their world shrunken to the three cloaked figures on the other side of the clearing.

But carelessness has a price. Hermione saw it be paid out of the corner of her eye, as a jolt of green light socked into Ginny's chest. Her brain didn't catch up with the meaning of the green flash and Ginny's falling body until her ears registered Ron's howl. A sound of despair, a sound of sheer pain, which pierced right through her. Ron ran towards his dead sister, flinging a vicious purple hex at the Death Eater that had killed her; completely oblivious to the other spells careening through the air. Hermione ran towards him, trying to shield them both and leaving Seamus and Neville to lead the fight.

"Ron, get up!" she yelled at him, pulling on his shoulder, while he held Ginny's freckled face and dropped tears over her cheeks. She looked peaceful somehow, as if she were simply asleep. "Ron, get up!" she yelled once more, as Ron seemed to sob his soul out, completely unfazed by the battle around them.

Neville moved closer to them, and Hermione let him have a try at getting Ron to rise and run, while she focused her attention on the Death Eaters. One of them seemed to be bleeding from an arm, and Hermione recognized him for the platinum hair that escaped from his hood, dancing with the wizard's movements. Lucius Malfoy. She aimed her wand, directing all of her fury at the wizard that had dared kill Ginny, the closest thing to a sister that she had ever know, the bright flame that kept them all going, Ron's sister, and she screamed, voice and mind as one.

"CRUCIO!"

A web of red tangled round Malfoy's body, lifting him off the floor and making him shriek. It was draining, it was so very exhausting, but Hermione liked it. She had a foe at her mercy, and she had none to give. In that moment, she understood what made Bellatrix tick, how powerful the feeling of hurting someone for the sake of it could be. And that made her stop. Her wand dropped and so did Lucius. But a voice rose from across the clearing.

"Avada Kedrava!"

Hermione saw the green curse jump off the wand and come speeding through the crisp air, an eerie sort of beauty, death with a kiss from poisonous lips, and though her mind screamed at her to move, to dodge, to do something, her body refused to do so. Entranced by the beauty of death on green wings, enthralled by the possibility of an end, her body didn't move at all. Ron's did.

Ron saw the green curse fly and was jolted to action by it. He tackled her out of the way, offering his back instead of her chest, and Hermione saw the light leaving his eyes. She saw the precise moment in which Ron's pupils went completely dark amidst the blue, void of spark; the instant in which his last breath formed a small cloud before his lips that lasted only as long as it took for his face to go through it on its way down. She tried to reach for it, to break his fall in some silly hope that he might be alive still, but all Hermione managed to do was grab hold of his battered scarf, which effortlessly slipped off his neck and over his head.

Her brain noticed very little after that. Someone pulled her out of the way of another curse, and someone screamed a spell that made the trees opposite them explode and spread their trunks in splinters through the air. Someone held her arms close to her body and against a foreign chest, while her fingers strangled the red and gold scarf, her nails digging into her palms even across the fabric. Someone grabbed hold of her arm and plunged her into a place where time was non-existent and space a fickle and fluid thing, a void that pinched and tugged and yet meant nothing against the pain her brain refused to process, though her heart bled profusely already.

They landed on a meadow. A green place with baby's breath and clovers all around them. A peaceful, quiet place. One that she filled with howls made of unfairness, of love destroyed, of hope shattered. One that she filled with sounds of a dying soul, with cries that would stave the hunger of a Dementor for years.

Once her screams quieted, a long while after Seamus and Neville had already Conjured every sort of shield they could remotely think of, a crippled sob left her lungs as the trail her life had been following was erased for all eternity.

She made no sound at all after that. She retreated into her mind, holding his scarf to her chest, cherishing the smell of him, and said nothing else. There were only tears to her; silent tears drawing streams that shined like silver on her cheeks, slowly pooling in a puddle on the meadow's floor.

oOo

Time had been hard enough to keep track of until then, but without Ginny and Ron, Hermione lost track of herself.

The boys did their best to keep her warm, and somewhat fed, but it was like the world was empty now. There was no more red in her world, and that seemed to take all the other colours away. There were still blue eyes in her world, but they were not the ones she searched for.

All she had to remember them by was Ron's scarf, which looked more and more like a cloth an house-elf might wear with every passing day. Not that Hermione noticed days anymore. She noticed light and the absence of it, she noticed warmth and the absence of it, but not time. Time was ever present, ever changing though it never changed the way she wanted it to. Time never went back. Time teased when she succumbed to slumber and her brain conjured up memories to build dreams of happiness and of things that would never pass. Time wrecked her whenever she woke up only to realize that it insisted on moving forward.

Hermione did not notice time anymore, but she still had some notion of space. Neville or Seamus would suddenly take hold of her arm or her hand and take her by Side along Apparition, and she would know that they had almost been caught again. Not because she saw the Death Eaters or the Snatchers, not because she felt the reverberation of the shields around her, but merely because space changed. She would be sucked into a fluid dimension that pricked and pulled, and oh how time seemed to stop then, and be spit out somewhere else.

Secretly, she started wishing for an accident. A looser touch, a hand not so steady, a mind not so sharp. Anything that would make their hasty Apparitions go wrong, so that she could be left in that place where time seemed to stay still in between two places. It would not go back, but it could indulge her enough to simply stop. It wouldn't stop altogether, she knew, but she would no longer be when it started again. She would be left in pieces along the way, a gruesome trail of crumbs, but what did she care? She had no need for this body, she had no need for this life if all that she could feel was emptiness. Pain. Sorrow.

Without the flame of Ron to her heart and the fieriness of Ginny to her drive, Hermione went out. Slowly, like a tall, tall candle left to burn alone in the darkness, melting away to a puddle that retained very little of her former self, her wick being consumed alongside her soul, dwindling bit by bit.

It dwindled, and dwindled, and soon the boys had to Levitate her most of the time. Seamus started Imperiusing her during their sparse meals. Neville cast spell after spell to keep her clean, and put her to sleep, and wake her up again. No matter what they did or where they went, they never managed to pry the scarf from her hands.

oOo

The first time Hermione reacted to the world that kept turning outside her grief, she dropped the scarf.

It was a minute thing, barely half a second, but her hands let go of the muddied fabric. Not long enough for it to reach the floor properly, but she dropped it nonetheless. She managed to gasp a warning for Seamus and Neville, and for the first time her pain was physical, organic, the rush of air into her lungs hurt, sharp and cold as it was.

When had it ever got so cold? Why was there snow all around them? Why was there ice hanging from naked branches? Why were there grey eyes spying them from the bushes?

"I mean no harm," came a voice, one that she recognized as a foe, "here, have my wand."

And amidst all the absurdities that she had seen in her life, Hermione saw Draco Malfoy emerge from the shadows, walking out of the bushes to throw his wand onto the floor, right before Neville's feet. There was no cloak of black to him, no mask of silver. Just his platinum hair and an immaculate suit, like he had walked straight out of a Hogwarts classroom.

Seamus was quick to act, knocking Draco out expeditiously, them binding him with ropes. Neville picked up the wand at his feet, twisting it around in his fingers, as if trying to assess how real it was. They clearly meant to grab her and Apparate somewhere else, but Hermione told them to bring him along as well.

Her voice was raspy, her throat was sore, but the authority in her tone left no room for argument. The boys stared at her for a long while, apparently realizing that she could still interact with them. They must have remembered enough of it though, for they took hold of Malfoy as they did of her, and Neville took them all someplace else.

Hermione forgot to enjoy the void of time that once, for she had seen in those grey eyes a soul as shattered as hers, and somehow that made him worthy of being heard. Somehow, the sight of a crushed soul had ignited her mind once more.

oOo

They sat across Malfoy, still bound by far too many more ropes than was necessary, tied to a tree stump that kept him upright enough, and leashed to another tree for safe measure. There was a dangerous glint to Seamus eyes, Hermione thought, but there was enough of a smile at the scene of Draco Malfoy bound, tied and leashed that her concern was put to rest. Neville pointed his wand at the face of their prisoner, and Draco Malfoy opened his eyes.

"I sort of expected that, though I wasn't sure you'd extend me the consideration of leaving me in a single piece for this part." He sounded as smug as ever, but nothing else in him kept his pretence up. This was not the smug boy, no. The slump of his body gave him away, the pain in his eyes told a truer tale.

Seamus and Neville took turns asking questions, questioning him infinitely, about the most minute details of how he had found them, and about the smallest motives for his lack of aggression at having done so. Hermione kept quiet, but Draco kept his grey eyes on her, ignoring the others as best he could.

He never asked questions, only answered them. He never questioned their motives, only explained his. When they were out of questions, and nowhere nearer to understanding what was going on, Draco merely provided them with information they hadn't asked for.

"You don't know what it's like now. He has it all, and there's nothing to stop him, nothing he fears," Draco kept his eyes on the ground, preventing them from glimpsing into the shards of his soul, "and it's nothing like it was supposed to be. It's all so grim, and everyone's terrified."

She had no idea why, but he kept addressing her instead of all three of them. It felt like she was being set up somehow. Her mind was slowly figuring it out, working through the exhaustion, and then derailed completely at the sound of Draco's words.

"It gets worse, Granger," he said, raising his pale eyes to her, "there's a child."

"A child? What do you mean a child?" Neville had an incredibly puzzled look on his face.

"My aunt had a daughter during our sixth year at Hogwarts," his voice had gone quieter and quieter, as if he was afraid of sounding the words out, as if he could curse them all in doing so, "I didn't know it at first, but she's his." He nodded once as he said it, gulping, like he had to digest the meaning behind his revelation too.

"His? What do you mean his? You can't possibly want us to believe that Voldemort had a daughter," Seamus was bellowing now, all concern for safety tossed aside, "if you're going to lie to us, at least do it right!"

"I'm not lying!" Draco's voice echoed in the clearing, "I wish I was, I really do, but I'm not. I came to try and fix all this, because that girl is the most powerful child I've ever met and he has plans for her. She's two and a half and Aunt Bella is already trying to teach her to control her powers! So you have to listen, because we need to fix this!" He was panting by the end of his tirade, his lungs loudly sucking in air and then pushing it out.

For a long while, the only sounds that joined those of the forest were the ones of their breathing, until a roaring laughter emerged from Hermione's side. Seamus had crumbled to the snowy ground, utterly lost to most unbecoming giggles and snorts.

Hermione didn't really care; all that she could think was that Seamus was going to get soaked from all the small muddy puddles amidst the snow. Neville did what he was best at these days: he picked up her slack. He pulled Seamus off the floor, scolding him all the way.

"Oh, come on, Neville! He wants us to fix this, isn't that funny? Well, let me tell you something, Draco," the mirth was all gone from Seamus' voice at that, "you can't fix death, and Harry is dead, so there's no fixing this. Also, killing children is your side's thing, so get rid of your little cousin yourself." He stood very still then, staring at Draco with a dare in his eyes, fisting his hands, all of him the picture of fury perilously restrained.

"There is a way to fix death, Seamus," Draco sounded perfectly serious as he said the most absurd thing, "if you have a Time-turner."

"A Time-turner?" Neville murmured under his breath.

"A Time-turner," Draco repeated, "we can go back to the day of the battle and fix it-"

"All the Time-turners were destroyed, there are none left. We broke them all that day-" Neville started to explain, only to be cut off by Draco.

"There is one left that I know of. At Malfoy Manor."

Another burst of laughter followed that, but this time Seamus sat down by Hermione's side instead of falling to the ground.

"How convenient… the bad guy comes to us and tells us that there's a solution to all our troubles. It just happens to be smack inside their headquarters."

"Seamus, let him speak."

"Oh, shut up, Neville! Don't you think I'd like Dean back? Just the same way you want Luna and Ginny. I know Hermione sure wants Ron back, not to mention Harry. Do you know who else knows that? He does," and the scorn in his eyes was so clear that it nearly dripped off his lower eyelid, "so stop your daydreaming. Cunning and resourceful, he is. And he has found one heck of a way to get all three of us."

"It's not like that. I'm not setting you up to get caught. I want to help you, I want to fix this. I have to fix this, it's all my fault."

"Oh, the bad guy turns out to be good after all, like we haven't seen _that_ before."

Draco's shoulders slumped, and his breath left his lungs as his voice cracked under the weight of his words.

"Maybe I don't want to be a bad guy anymore."

"Oh, isn't that endearing?" Seamus sniggered.

Hermione kept quiet, as she had been for the entire conversation, but Draco's eyes and hers met and she saw something she did not expect.

Draco Malfoy wanted to change the past so that he could change his future. Whatever that may be, he had no interest in it whatsoever. He found himself at the very place they had been for she had no idea how long now. A harsh, dark place, deep in their souls.

Nowhere to go, no hope of a better day, and nothing to lose.

"A Time-turner, Malfoy? Do you suppose we can fix all this by going back a couple of hours?" She laughed. After her words, Hermione laughed for the first time in a long time. Not a thing of joy, but a thing of scorn and spite and madness.

Draco waited for her to finish, for her to wipe the tears of bitter mirth from her eyes.

"We all learned about Time-turners, and we were all told that, at most, we could go back hours, perhaps a few days," he seemed to shudder at that, "but this is just myth. Far more powerful Time-turners were built centuries ago."

"And the Malfoys just happened to find this one now?" Hermione wanted to be rational about this, she truly did. She wanted to analyse every single scrap of information, to determine whether it was true or false, to sort it all by probability, but she was simply too tired. And far too willing to believe. She wanted a way out of her misery, and it was either this or death.

"It's a family heirloom. It has been in our possession for generations."

That made perfect sense, except the Ministry should have taken such a thing from them after the first war. But then again, the Malfoys had held on to a Horcrux after the Ministry had searched the Manor, so was it really so strange that they had found a way to keep a Time-turner hidden as well?

"How powerful is it?" Her mind couldn't care less about how foolish this all seemed. She had found a trail of little crumbs of hope and she would cling to every single one of them and feel them melt in her mouth as she went, and hopefully find a better place at the end.

"This Time-turner… it will take you back a year with every turn."

A year? A whole year back in time? Hermione completely forgot about her surroundings then, too busy thinking about all the things she could change in that year, all the things she could undo or do better. She found her hand wrapped around her forearm and the vicious scar she carried there.

This was lunacy. This was absolutely senseless, and yet Hermione jumped on it immediately. If she had a chance to fix this, even barely a figment of a chance to have Harry and Ron back, she would throw all sense over her back and run towards it. So she planned.

Under Seamus and Neville's flabbergasted staring, Hermione Granger sat down by Draco's Malfoy side, released him, demanded his wand be given back, and together they planned for a way to change the past.

It was mental, it stood on incredibly feeble legs by the time they were done, but it was a plan.

Pretend to be captured, get inside the Manor, wait for Draco and the Time-turner and leave this path to nowhere. Exchange it for another unknown future, one where they had a chance, one where they knew better. A future they could shape differently.

Neville and Seamus opposed, but Hermione put all of her stubbornness into convincing them that this was the only way, that this was better.

"We have nothing else here. I know what I'm doing, I've done it before."

"Why can't we all go back?"

"Because you and Seamus led the resistance inside Hogwarts. We are going to replace ourselves back then, but I need you to do exactly what you did. I need you to keep the spark alive. Can you do that, knowing where we ended up the first time?"

Seamus meant to answer, probably to fight her, and hex Draco out of his socks while he was at it, but Neville stopped him.

"She petrified me once, Seamus, and she'll have no trouble doing it again. She's our best chance and her mind is made. There's no stopping it now."

"This is madness!"

"And what isn't these days?"

Hermione smiled sadly, thinking on how much they had changed since that summer night, on how their world had become darker and darker until there was nothing but shadows and sorrow. Then, she turned to Draco, incapable of facing them as she bid them goodbye.

"Apparate somewhere else you two, and hope for better."

oOo

"Oh, but what have we got here? Well done, Draco," Bellatrix's shrill baby voice was enough to push Hermione's sanity to the very brim, "the Dark Lord will be pleased."

Their plan was already going awry, and they had barely started. Bellatrix Lestrange was not supposed to be here, Lord Voldemort had sent her on a scouting mission that should take days to complete, and yet here she was.

Hermione's hands were bound behind her back, and Draco kept a tight hold on her left arm, forgotten of his repulse for her blood.

"Why don't you inform the Dark Lord, Aunt Bella? I'm sure he'll like to hear it from you. I'll take this filthy creature to the dungeons and get started-"

"Do nothing! She is mine, Draco, my plaything, darling… But keep watch for me."

Hermione's legs nearly gave out at the mere thought of another close encounter with Bellatrix Lestrange, and her stomach twisted and cramped as the skin to her scar prickled. She forced her mind to keep sharp, and she watched as the mad witch with the mane of curls left the room.

"Change of plans, Granger. You're coming with me to the Time-turner. Act scared."

She didn't have to, she was. Her mind was a whirl with the notion that Bellatrix Lestrange was coming for her, that Voldemort would be told of her presence here, that this house was crawling with people that wished to see her die or do it themselves.

Her feet refused to work properly, and she stumbled her way to a darkened room with walls covered in shelves and books. Here and there, there were boxes and cases among the books. Draco quickly moved towards one while he pointed his wand over his shoulder and closed and locked the door. Hermione's mind actually took a second to consider if this wasn't all a sick prank, a twisted way to lure her into a gruesome end, but then Draco extracted a golden object from a dark blue box and she was absolutely sure that it wasn't.

Her bounds were magically but silently undone, and she realized that Draco probably had the skill to capture all three of them at the clearing, should he have wished to do so. As it was, she merely shook the numbness of her arms, forcing her body to move forward.

The Time-turner shone in Draco's hands, lighting the room in a shade of gold that managed to be cold. There was a long chain wrapped in his fingers, one that would be long enough to be pulled over both their heads. The artefact itself was a series of circles around two spheres. And outer one, made of crystal that had fallen open like the petals of a flower, and an inner one, solid and golden and looking eerily beautiful. An axle kept it together. From its bottom the crystal sphere lay spread, while from the top clung the first link of the chain, and between them time.

But there were steps coming from outside, hurried steps and the tell-tale clicking of a cane.

"Don't do anything stupid, Draco," came the voice of Lucius Malfoy from beyond the door, "we are back in the Dark Lord's good graces-"

"Granger, go into the next room, take the Time-turner and set it up," Draco ordered her, "but don't close your hand around it. If I don't walk past that door in five seconds, go without me. Fix this, Granger."

She merely nodded, too enthralled by all the possibilities that she held in her hand. The figment of a chance was true, even if not certain. She walked to the next room, slightly oblivious to the altercation happening behind her back, but paying enough attention to hear some words.

"Have you lost your mind? Your aunt will have your skin once she's done with the Mudblood. Why is that case open?"

Something crashed in the other room, and something heavy fell to the floor. Perhaps a body.

Hermione carefully turned the inner sphere just once. One year, just one, that was all she needed to be whole again, to fix this. She would have Ron, and Harry, and everyone else the war had stolen from her. She would have her future back, to shape and determine into something better.

And then a pale hand snatched the Time-turner from her hand and her control with it. The hand tried to hold on to the shiny instrument, but failed, and Hermione saw the inner sphere spin and spin and spin, all the way to the floor, and then keep spinning as the Time-turner danced on the wooden floor. Time never stopped, and she had given it momentum.

She looked to the face that went with the hand and saw nothing but a malicious glint to steel grey eyes. These were not the eyes of the broken boy, these were the eyes of someone intent on hurting her.

Her body stilled, stiff, as she tried and failed to remember where she had her wand. Then her mind forced it to move, to fight, magic or no magic, and she hurled her body into the shape of Lucius Malfoy, caught off guard by something as physical as a shove.

Hermione dived towards the Time-turner, closing her hand around it the second that she touched it. It was reckless and most unwise, but that was her only way out. Maybe there'd be an accident. Maybe there was still a small change of having Harry and Ron back. She found herself being pulled into that familiar dimension were time and space were distorted. Except this time, time did not seem to still. Time rushed back, and it felt like being stuck in a current of water, being dragged to the bottom with no tether to come back up.

oOo

Hermione landed on some sort of path, listening to the grit crumble beneath her body, feeling it dig into her and pierce the skin of her hands and face. She coughed and a cloud of fine dust formed, only making it worse. She looked up and found herself in the middle of what seemed to be a park.

She got up as quickly as she could; worried that someone might see her. She shook the dust off her clothes and pushed her hair off her face. She quickly searched her pockets, and breathed with a renewed ease as she felt her wand in it. Not Bellatrix's wand but hers, the same vine wood wand that had chosen her and that Draco had given back to her in the clearing. That had probably been the only part of their plan that had turned out as expected.

She walked the grit path for a little while, trying to establish where she was, and, most importantly, when she was. There were no other people, and no traffic so near that she could hear it clearly, but there were wooden benches here and there, with metal bins at their side.

Hermione carefully perused through one after the other, looking for something with a date. She finally found a newspaper with grease stains, probably from a dose of fish and chips. The ink was smudged on many places, and it was no first page, but there was a date in the corner, over the bold line that separated the heading from the news.

"October 3rd 1978," she read aloud. She sat down on the bench, catching her breath. She had been sent twenty years back. It was nearly two years before either Ron or Harry would even be born. A year before she would be born.

She eventually got up and started walking. She had the when, she needed a where, then she would come up with an how. She had a new trail to follow now. One made of little crumbles of past that was future that she had heard from the mouths of people that hadn't been born yet.

Time was a fickle thing to be messed with, but she had taken the risk and come out unharmed on the other side, on another time. She had a new purpose here. She had wanted to change the battle, but now she stood a chance to change the war. All she had to do was find a way to tweak things without altering them.

Because if she managed to simply tweak them, Ron and Harry would be back, but the war would not.

* * *

_Author's Notes: Word count – 6 873_

_Assignment #3 Ancient Runes Task 4: Write about a new life_

_February Writing Club –Book Club Ambiades (emotion) envy, (theme) betrayal, (character) Lucius Malfoy, (dialogue) "But this is just myth", (object) sword; Showtime 4. Write about fixing something Alt Write about a group of guys; Em's Emporium 1. Write about the most heart-breaking scenario you can imagine, then make it even more painful; Liza's Loves 4. Write about someone working towards a goal; Angel's Arcade Bartz Klauser (title) where the trail leads us, (genre) hurt/comfort, (word) unknown, (plot point) leaving somewhere; Lo's Lowdown Character 2. Hermione Granger; Bex's Basement 3. Write about one part of the couple dying; Film Festival 2. (plot point) Write about a bad guy turning good and 21. (dialogue) "Maybe I don't want to be the bad guy anymore"_

_Winter Seasonal Challenge – Days of the Year: January 27th - Punch the Clock Day Write about time travel; Winter Prompts (word) Ice; Colour Prompts: Platinum; Birthstones: Aquamarine** -** (dialogue) "Where did the time go?"; Flowers: Holly (object) Scarf; Elemental Challenge: (word) Puddle; Winter in Japan: Write about the effect of war on someone;_

_365 Prompts Challenge - 124. Malicious_


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